Forever for a Year(47)

Carolina closed the door behind us and kissed me. I kissed her back. I grabbed her. She grabbed me. And we acted like we were going to swallow each other. I couldn’t even think when we kissed. It was just so intense my brain turned off and my body took over.

There was a knock on the door, and we yanked ourselves apart. Both of us wiped our mouths dry, and Carolina opened the door. It was her mom. Of course.

She said, “Leave the door open,” turned around, and disappeared.

*

I walked home a little while later because when my dad was home we always had dinner at seven Sunday through Thursday. Carolina said her mom could drive me, but I didn’t want her to hate me any more than she already did.

We texted during my whole walk home so it felt like Carolina was still with me, even if only in my head.

*

That week at school, Carolina and I went everywhere together. We held hands. We kissed in the hall. We texted between classes. During lunch period, we spent half the time with her friends at the cafeteria table, then half the time in the hall, sitting on the floor, our sides pressed tightly against each other. She called me on Monday night, so I called her Tuesday night. Then we video chatted Wednesday, which was awesome but uncomfortable—so much pressure to look cool because we couldn’t touch each other; when we could touch each other we didn’t worry about looking cool—so we went back to texting Thursday night.

At practice Thursday, Tor said, “I see you got yourself a girlfriend, Pain,” because that had become my nickname.

And I said, “Yep.”

“You had sex yet?” one of the seniors, Edward, asked, then laughed as if what he’d said was a joke.

“No,” I said.

“Better find out if she’s a prude now so you don’t waste too much time with her,” he said. I wanted to beat Edward’s face in. But I didn’t do it. Of course not. I’m not a psycho in real life, only in my head. I hate that I’m a psycho anywhere. Maybe Carolina will make me normal.

I didn’t care if Carolina was a prude. She wasn’t. But I wouldn’t care if she were. Can you be a prude with someone you love? I don’t know, but I don’t think so.

*

We went and saw a movie Friday. Her dad drove and dropped us off. He was super relaxed, which made him easy to be with. Like he was in high school, but not immature. My dad is so uptight about everything. I always feel like I’m doing something wrong around him even if I’m not doing anything. My life would be a lot better if Carolina’s dad was my dad. Mr. Fisher probably would have been a better husband to my mom too. Maybe he would have made her feel like she didn’t have to be perfect. Who the hell knows.

Sitting next to Carolina in the theater was … different. Made me a bit nuts. The right side of my body did this tiny shake the entire movie. All my skin cells wanted to jump off me and onto her. She didn’t notice. We had never sat next to each other for two hours without talking or kissing. Just wound me up, more each minute. Voom. Voooom. Voooooom. I couldn’t really concentrate on the story, but Carolina has this cute laugh where it starts in her nose, she tries to stop it with her hand, and then it comes out the side of her mouth as part of a big smile. I concentrated on that.

Afterward, my mom picked us up. As much as my dad makes everything tense with his seriousness, I still would rather deal with him than my mom. At least my dad knows when to be quiet. But she had insisted.

“Why don’t you sit in front with me, Carolina?” my mom said as I opened the front passenger door. Before I could protest, Carolina said, “Okay!” and jumped in past me. I sat in the back. Sulked. I was primed to watch my mom find a way to destroy the one thing that had made life tolerable since she tried to kill herself.

And … I don’t know. My mom asked generic questions about Carolina’s family. And school. And other crap I know my mom didn’t care about. But Carolina loved it. I could see it in her expression even from the back seat. Now I worried that Carolina would like my mom, they would become friends, and I’d have to tell her that my mom was this broken person who couldn’t be trusted. Then Carolina wouldn’t trust me. And then …

Come on, Trevor. Breathe. Breathe. This fake, overfriendly conversation is driving me insane! Aaaaaaahhhhh … Okay … Relax …

*

As we were walking down the stairs into the basement, Carolina said, “I love your mom. You have the best mom I’ve ever met,” and for a second I hated Carolina. And I hated my mom more than ever for making me hate Carolina.

“What’s wrong?” Carolina stopped, made me face her. But I couldn’t look her in the eyes.

“Nothing,” I said. I wasn’t going to talk about this. No way. I’d rather slam my head through the wall.

“Trevor,” she said, softer, taking both my hands in hers. “Are you mad at me?” And as soon as she said it, so sincere and looking at me with so much care, not with this emptiness my mom always had, I stopped hating her and loved her more than ever.

“I’m not mad at you. I’m … I … you’re the best thing in my life,” I said. Seriously, if you told me I’d be saying this stuff two weeks ago, I would have jumped in front of a train.

“You’re my best thing too,” she said, and kissed me. It was nice. I kissed her back slowly. Which was not usual for us. But I didn’t want to swallow her up right now. I just wanted to be connected and make sure the connection stayed strong, and I could only do that if my head wasn’t dizzy. So we tried kissing slow, and it calmed me. We lay side by side on the couch. Our legs stacked my right, her left, my left, her right, and my right arm was under her body, her right arm rested along my side. We didn’t use tongue, not much. Didn’t close our eyes. Just kept kissing every few seconds, like we were nibbling at each other. Not in a gross way. But like we wanted to taste each other, savor each other. That still sounds gross. But I swear it was really sweet. Now it sounds stupid. It was great, okay?